How Late it Was, How Late

First edition. 8vo. Pp. [viii], 374. Publisher's black cloth, lettered in gilt to spine; black endpapers. Jacket illustrations by Colum Leith (priced at £14.99 to front flap).

Signed by Author to title page. Light toning to textblock edges, else Fine.

Kelman's fourth novel. Winner of the 1994 Booker Prize and the Writers' Guild / Macallan Award for Fiction. A Kafkaesque struggle against the impersonal forces of the State, told in a stream-of-consciousness demotic Glaswegian by a shoplifting ex-con, following a two-day drinking binge. Its near-impenetrable vernacular, liberal use of profanities, and radical structure, aroused the ire of the London literati, including Kingsley Amis and the 'outmanoeuvred' Booker judge, Rabbi Julia Neuberger, who labelled it 'crap'. "A passionate, scintillating, brilliant song of a book." –Janette Turner Hospital, The Guardian